Learn to do One Handed Press Ups and One Armed Pull Ups

By Adam Sinicki

I don't workout to look cool or to pull and that's the honest truth of it (muscles can do little to counteract my bad odour...), but everyone likes to show off every now and again and two of the coolest ways to do this if you're a bodybuilder are the one-handed press up and the one-armed pull up. They're cool party tricks and to make them even awesomer Bruce Lee used to do them (actually he did two finger push ups but lets not get ahead of ourselves here).

So how can you learn? Obviously to start with you want to get good at doing ordinary pull ups/press ups. So do lots. And at the same time do lots of bench press, lat pull downs and sit ups (core stability is very important here). After that though you can start to progress to some transitional exercises; one such method is to use what I call 'rocking' exercises (they rock! Oh dear...). For example to do a rocking press up, first get into press up position but then only go down on one arm - leaning to one side before repeating on the other side. Pull ups are the same - you just hang from the bar normally but then use almost just the one arm as much as you can. These are great stepping stones to doing the exercises on their own.

For the press ups this should probably be sufficient and once you can do a good 10 rocking press ups on either side you're ready for a one armed attempt. This is fairly tricky and technique is important. The most helpful tip I can give you is to spread your legs as wide apart as you can (you'll probably just be on your big toes). This is distributes the weight more and takes pressure off your hand. At the same time you'll want the hand you're using a bit more central than usual and your spare one behind your back (otherwise it'll just hang limply and that doesn't look cool - it looks spasticated).

Now you've got the hang of that one it's just the pull up left. The technique is fairly self-explanatory but it's actually much harder and requires more strength. The good news is that there are more exercises you can use to build up to it. One is to do a one-armed pull up by holding onto your good arm (forearm height) with your spare one. This is almost as easy as doing an ordinary pull up making it a cool looking move that most intermediates should be able to accomplish. The other stepping stone is to use just one hand but to jump from the floor and just let yourself down more slowly. Combining these two intermediary moves should enable you to eventual build the strength and technique to do it un-assisted.

So there you have it - I just taught you two cool exercises and improved your sex-life all in one article. You can thank me later. It is important however to remember to train both sides equally, or you'll end up looking lop sided and that could well have the opposite effect. After these there are loads more party-trick exercises you can learn - press ups where you clap behind your back, squats with people on your shoulders, deadlifts with cars, hand-stand press ups, one legged squats... the sky's the limit! Enjoy the adulation!